Description:
This breakthrough text shows MBA's how to use economics to solve business problems. Succinct, faced paced, and challenging, students should be able to read the book from cover to cover and come away with a good understanding of how to diagnose business problems, and then fix them. With a lively, interactive approach, MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS focuses on the kinds of decisions managers face on a daily bases, making it an excellent resource for students pursuing business -- rather than academic -- careers. "Managerial Economics: A Problem Solving Approach is a breath of fresh air. After having taught managerial economics for 20 years, I became dissatisfied with texts that confront students with graphs, economic principles only loosely connntected to business problems, and tedious calculations. I wanted a text that really helps students to see how economic principles could help them solve business problems. This new text does just that."--Ed Millner, Chairman, Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University. "With no experiece in business and no exposure to math since a D in high school trig, I found economics utterly incomprehensible. Then [the text] spoke one sentence to me, ... It all became clear."--PJ O'Rourke, one of America's leading political satirists and best-selling author of Eat the Rich: a Treatise on Economics. "In twenty years, it will be seen as the standard way to teach economics."--Robert Litan, Vice President for Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation.
Contents:
SECTION I: PROBLEM SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING.
1. Introduction: What This Book is About.
2. The One Lesson of Business.
3. Benefits, Costs, and Decisions.
4. Extent (How Much) Decisions.
5. Investment Decisions: Look Ahead and Reason Back.
SECTION II: PRICING, COSTS, AND PROFITS.
6. Simple Pricing.
7. Economies of Scale and Scope.
8. Forecasting Industry Changes.
9. How to Keep Profit from Eroding.
SECTION III: PRICING FOR GREATER PROFIT.
10. More Realistic and Complex Pricing.
11. Direct Price Discrimination.
12. Indirect Price Discrimination.
SECTION IV: STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING.
13. Strategic Games.
14. Bargaining. SECTION V: UNCERTAINTY.
15. Making Decisions With Uncertainty.
16. The Problem of Adverse Selection.
17. The Problem of Moral Hazard.
SECTION VI: ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN.
18. Getting Employees to Work in the Best Interests of the Firm.
19. Getting Divisions to Work in the Best Interests of The Firm.
20. Managing Vertical Relationships. SECTION VII: WRAPPING UP.
21. You Be The Consultant.
Epilogue
Glossary
Index